Julian Barnes in conversation with Ian McEwan

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Julian Barnes in conversation with Ian McEwan

Art &
Culture

Reflections on life with two of the most celebrated voices in contemporary British literature

Presented in partnership with Waterstones.

Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan are widely celebrated as two of the finest writers of their generation. Along with Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro, they were included on Granta’s prescient Best Young British Novelists list in 1993 and have gone on to write some of the most memorable novels of the past three decades.

In January 2026 they came together to discuss the book that Barnes says will be his last, Departure(s). It follows a man named Stephen and a woman called Jean who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. Barnes and McEwan will draw on the themes of the book to discuss topics including philosophy, art, the slipperiness of memory, the passage of time, mortality and grief.

This was a rare opportunity to hear two of the most celebrated voices in contemporary British literature discussing their craft and reflections on life.

Speakers

Speaker

Julian Barnes

Novelist

Julian Barnes is the author of 14 novels (including Flaubert’s Parrot, Arthur and George and the 2011 Man Booker Prize-winning The Sense of an Ending), as nine non-fiction titles and three short story collections. As well as the Man Booker Prize, he has been awarded the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Prix Médicis and Prix Femina. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur.

Host

Ian McEwan

British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter

British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. He is the author of eighteen books, including the novels Atonement, Enduring Love, The Child In Time, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach. Several of his novels have been adapted for the screen, including the BAFTA-winning film Atonement. He won the 1998 Booker prize with Amsterdam.

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